Treatment

Treatment

The name we gave our name Virago because the motor bike that is featured in the film that Edward rides is a Yamaha Virago. Due to the motor bike being a big part of the backstory of the film. Also the word Virago means a domineering, violent or bad-tempered woman. Which fits in with the story of Edward’s wife. Having this title linked in with story, the viewer may be intrigued to find out more about any unanswered questions they have when they watched the film.

When we were deciding the length of the film, we decided that it should last around the 5 minute mark. This leaves us enough time to explain the story and still retain the audience’s attention, without them loosing attention the film. Also due to the film being an assessment, we would not have enough time for planning, editing and scripting to create a longer film. Around the 5 minute mark we feel is just fine for a short film and long enough to captivate the audience’s film throughout the film.

For our film we aim to target a large demographic, not to be bound to one set range of potential audience. The film was aimed to be watchable to all genders, races and religions. This was to stop any feeling of decimation or prejudices a specific group of people. To combat against gender, we casted a male and female characters to be the main characters in the film.  

The only restriction we have to our film is the viewing age. The rating we gave to our film is and 18, this is because in the BBFC classification it states ‘where material or treatment appears to us to risk harm to individuals or, through their behaviour, to society.’

In our film, there is a suicide scene where Edward is self-harming and it is a very graphic scene. We feel like viewers under the age of 18 are not suitable to watch the film, because the viewer may not have developed filters to know not to copy the scenes in the scene. This is why the film we have created is for a mature audiences who we feel have enough life experiences to develop and put up these filters to stop them from repeating the scenes in the film. 

When it comes to distributing our short film we have 3 main distributers to showcase our film. The first one is Warp films. We chose Warp because it is a UK based independent film distributer with a number of popular films they have helped to distribute. These films include Four Lions, 71, This Is England and many more. They have also helped showcase other short films created by Lynne Ramsey, Richard Ayoade and Chris Cunningham. We film that Warp Films would be a good distributer for our short film as they already have a large fan base who watch their material that they distribute.

Another way we could distribute our film is by using YouTube, YouTube is a good, free way of making our film seen by large amounts of people. Many large short film creators use YouTube to distribute their films due to the fact that almost everyone can access it etc.

The films synopsis is about a young man who has recently lost his wife but still gets haunted with her memories. He rides his motor bike every day, to the grave yard, to see her. The widower (Edward) sit calmly in the grave yard, praying for her to rest peacefully and hopes reunite with her in the afterlife. One day, he gets home and starts to drink. He wakes up, heads still spinning and he feels a dark feeling in his house. He sees a figure at the bottom of the stairs, it was her. She wants him to join her in the afterlife.

When we imagined our film, we wanted to carry out the dark story line throughout the film, that why we wanted to make the film black and white, apart from certain characteristics. This is affect really highlights important and symbolic parts of the film, bringing the film more depth and dimension.

 Another element of our film is that it follows quiet a linear story line. We follow what the main character does in the story and include flashbacks to what has happened in the past. Such as the wedding scene. Adding these flashbacks gives the viewer more insight and better understanding of the story line. This makes the story line a lot easier to get is happening in the short film.

When we were creating the film, we wanted to brainstorm certain characteristics from other films to gain inspiration. Films like American Pyscho was a good psychological thriller that we wanted to emulate and copy some characteristics from the film. For example by creating a mysterious character like Patrick Bateman. Having this mysterious create a depth and dimension to the film because it makes the viewer think about the character and questions them about what certain actions or mise-en-scene that they might have.

The script for the film is mainly stage directions and how the characters should be portrayed in the scene. This makes the scene more believable to the viewer because we can plan on how we want the characters to be making sure that they can create a sense of realness with the scene. The script was inspired and written similarly to other films of the same genre such as American Psycho's description of particular scenes action as well as its pacing. The scripted dialogue was inspired by a plethora of drama and thriller films.